After guiding the Erie SeaWolves to a spectacular season in 2001, Pujols was then pushed up into a major league managing role in 2002 after Randy Smith and Phil Garner were abruptly fired just six games into the season. There, he became a bit of a joke with the penultimate being him batting a player out of order during a game. He was eventually fired and he then went to serve as the Giants bench coach for Felipe Alou (who also was the Tigers bench coach in 2002 and who was blamed for the batting order gaffe).